


We Still Have Tonight

by Lady_Slytherin



Category: Lovely Little Losers
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Kissing, Never Have I Ever, Party Games, background Beadick and Pedrazar and also a tiny reference to background Donalduke, but that's because the world is ending so, i just really needed a Zombie Apocalypse + Party Games AU in my life, i sent this to my friend who thought the concept was hilarious and she was like "why's it so angsty", so here's a warning that this is kinda angsty, there are references to the fact that people might die but nobody dies in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 18:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6126244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Slytherin/pseuds/Lady_Slytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Lovely Little Femslash Day Seven: Free Day</strong><br/>The world is ending, and Freddie Kingston has never been kissed. Zombie Apocalypse+Never Have I Ever AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Still Have Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking "somebody should combine Zombie Apocalypse with something ridiculous" for months so when this came around I knew I had to do it. Thanks as always to @megwinter for betaing for co-running this event, and to every one you who participated!

Three loud knocks sounded on the door of Navarre Bar. 

Freddie got up from her seat and cautiously approached the tables that served as a barricade. “Who is it?” she called, holding her knife at the ready.

Jaquie’s voice came through the door. “Oh, for fuck’s sake Freddie,” she said. “You know it’s us, we just texted Peter to say we were close.”

Freddie looked at Peter for confirmation. He nodded. “Let them in.”

“A little help here?” Freddie asked, looking at the barricade. Meg and Ben came to her rescue, moving tables and wooden bars away from the door so that Jaquie and John could be let in.

“Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,” John said, double-locking the door behind him. 

Peter didn’t wait to hear the rest of what he had to say, instead running up to his brother and throwing his arms around him. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said when he released him. “That took longer than it usually does.”

“I told him that you and Jaquie know how to look after yourselves,” Balthazar said. He also gave John a brief hug. 

Freddie just looked at John, wondering if there was a way to let him know she was happy he wasn’t dead without actually hugging him. She settled for a nod in his direction. Meg smirked at her, as though she knew what was going on in her head. 

John made his way over to the bar. “So, the good news is that nobody tried to stop us from looting this time.” He set his backpack down on the bar and began to pull out cans of food.

Jaquie rolled her eyes as she began unpacking her own bag. “That’s only because most of the people still out on the streets are zombies.”

“Well, yes, that’s the bad news part of it,” John said. “But I did manage to steal quite a bit of chocolate.”

Peter laughed a bit tensely, then snapped into leadership mode. Even after weeks, Freddie was still surprised that he could shift gears so quickly. “Freddie, Ben, get the barricades back up. Hero, you help John sort the food by how quickly it’ll go bad. Balthazar, you should help with the barricades as well.”

“What about me and Jaquie?” Meg asked. “I can help Freddie with the barricades.”

Peter shook his head. “First I need you to text Costa and Kit. We haven’t heard from them in a few days and I want to make sure they’re still alive.”

“Oh, I got a text from Paige this morning,” Balthazar said as he went over to the bar to help sort food. “They finally got back to cell service. They’re doing all right, still haven’t found Chelsey’s parents though.”

“Jesus,” Peter said, running hand through his hair. “I don’t know which would be worse honestly, knowing they’re dead or not knowing anything.”

Freddie helped Ben move the wooden beams back into position. _Not knowing,_ she thought, in silent reply to Peter’s question. Knowing would be better than limbo, than waiting every night for a text from your parents so you’d know that they were still alive. At nine o’clock every night Freddie was given the gift of knowing that hers had made it through another day. By ten, she was back to being unsure. It’d be different if they were in a safe house like Bea and Hero’s family. 

“Hey, help me move this,” Ben said. Freddie silently moved to the other side of the table, and together they lifted it to move it back against the door.

After only a few minutes, the barricade was back in place. Without any more work to be done, the group lapsed back into silence. Meg pulled herself to a sitting position on top of the bar. Freddie looked at her and hesitated for a moment, then joined her. Meg smiled and touched her leg for a moment. The others were sitting at the various non-barricade tables, but Freddie decided it was better up here, although she couldn’t have said for sure why that was.

“Let’s eat,” Peter said after a little while. Without waiting for a response he went behind the bar and took out cans of soup and spoons for everybody. The soup was cold but otherwise tolerable. They ate in silence. Freddie kept looking over at Meg, wanting to say something but not knowing what. They hadn’t known each other well, before the apocalypse had started, but under different circumstances she wondered if they could have been close.

“Costa just texted back,” Jaquie said. She collected the empty soup cans and put them in their waste area. “He said that they weren’t taking advantage of his swordfighting skills as much as they should be, but other than that things are good.”

“It’s really brave of him to be out there,” Hero said. “Kit, too. Can you imagine what that would be like? Joining an army dedicated to fighting the undead?”

No, Freddie couldn’t. Her parents, clearly, had been another story.

“We’re doing our part too,” Peter said firmly. “Keeping ourselves alive matters. Civilization will crumble if there aren’t enough survivors.”

Meg laughed humorlessly. “Are you suggesting that we’ll be called upon to repopulate the universe? Because no offense to any of the guys in this room, but that is _so_ not happening.”

“I’m not talking about repopulation,” Peter said. He clenched his fist on his leg. “The world’s going to be in chaos when this ends. If it ends. Somebody has to be around to pick up the pieces. Our lives matter, okay?” His voice came dangerously close to breaking, but he recovered. “They have to. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Freddie nodded firmly. “Peter’s right.”

“Well, if these two agree on something, it must be true, yeah?” Balthazar said. The others laughed, but Freddie was watching the way he took Peter’s hand and gently pried apart his fingers so that he could hold it.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Meg said. She glanced over at Freddie. “The way things change in situations like this.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Well, it’s like what Balthazar just said. A month ago, Peter and Freddie couldn’t agree on anything, and now they can. Hell, take Peter and Balthazar and the fact that our impending mortality finally gave them the push they needed to get together.”

“We would have figured it out eventually,” Peter said, sounding only a little bit defensive.

Bea tilted her head. “It is funny though, isn’t it? We’re all living in a bar together, waiting out the Zombie Apocalypse, but we’re all closer than we’ve ever been.”

“Living in a bar together would have brought all of us closer even if there weren’t a Zombie Apocalypse going on outside,” Jaquie said. “Or at least it would have brought _me_ closer to the rest of you. Probably much closer than you’d want me to be. I’m a cuddly drunk.”

Freddie found herself laughing at this. 

“You know, I don’t know what sort of drunk I am. I’ve never actually been drunk before,” Hero said thoughtfully. “I always thought there’d be time for that later on.”

“I haven’t either,” John said. 

Peter looked at them for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind about something. He went behind the bar and retrieved several bottles. “Well, we still have tonight,” he said. “And any more nights we manage to stay alive for.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hero asked. “If we’re drunk, we can’t fight off the zombies if they find a way in.”

Peter considered this. “They haven’t breached our barricades so far,” he said. “I think we can risk it. We sleep don’t we? We’re vulnerable then too, but we do that.”

_Some of us, anyway,_ Freddie thought.

Ben stared at Peter. “It’s the end of the world and all you can think about is getting drunk?”

“It sounds like a decent idea to me,” Jaquie said with a shrug. “Why let all of this perfectly good alcohol go to waste?”

“I agree,” Freddie said. Peter looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Well, it just makes sense, doesn’t it? We have to keep morale up somehow or we’ll stop seeing any reason to keep going.”

“So we’re just going to sit around and drink?” Bea asked. “Seems sort of pathetic, doesn’t it.”

“We could do some sort of game,” Balthazar suggested. “Make it feel like we’re high schoolers at a party or something.”

“Some of us _are_ still high schoolers,” Hero pointed out. “Or were, anyway.”

Peter nodded. “That’s a good idea, Balthy. What do you guys think, Never Have I Ever?”

“No. Not that one,” Freddie said, shaking her head vigorously. Everyone turned to look at her. “What? I don’t want to spend what could be one of my last nights alive thinking about all the things I never got a chance to do.”

“Yeah, but that’s not really the point of Never Have I Ever, is it?” Ben said. Sometime in the last few minutes, he’d laid his head down on Bea’s lap. Freddie felt lonely just looking at them. “It’s about being able to talk about the things you _have_ done.”

“He’s right,” John said. “Think about it. Nobody enjoys the part where you think of things you haven’t done. The fun of it is in getting show off everything you _have_ done. Might be a good reminder that we’ve lived, really.”

“Come on, Freddie,” Meg said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Freddie closed her eyes for a second, wondering if she was about to cry. “What else is there to do?”

What, indeed? Besides sitting alone with her thoughts and skin that felt too tight from being trapped in a space for too long. The only running Freddie had been able to do for weeks was running away from things, and the longer she went without her routine the worse things got. Maybe getting drunk with her friends was exactly what she was supposed to be doing right now.

“Fine,” Freddie said, re-opening her eyes. “I’m in if everyone else is.”

Hero joined her and Meg on the bar. Bea and Ben moved two stools near them, and the others ended up dragging a table near the bar to sit on so that they were arranged in a loose circle. Peter retrieved shot glasses and set out several bottles, containing alcohol of various strengths. Freddie shot him a grateful smile when she saw that a few of them were just beer. She wasn’t sure how drunk she planned on getting tonight.

They filled their glasses and began. 

“Who’s first?” Ben asked.

“I’ll go,” Balthazar offered. “Never have I ever eaten meat.”

Everyone groaned as they took their shots. “Unfair,” Peter said, wrapping an arm around Balthazar’s shoulder.

“You’ve been a vegetarian your whole life?” Hero asked. “I mean, I knew it had been a long time, but I didn’t realize it was that long.”

“Yeah, my whole family’s vegetarian so I kind of just grew up with it. I don’t mind, though, it’s kind of nice not to have to even worry about it.”

Peter went next, saying that he’d never fallen in love with someone he thought he’d hated. Bea and Ben good-naturedly downed their shots. After that it was Hero, who’d never broken a bone (“Boring!” Meg called) and John, who’d never been stoned. 

“Freddie,” Meg said, nudging her. “It’s you next.”

“Okay,” Freddie said. She took a deep breath and looked down at her shot, trying to think of something. “Never Have I Ever kissed someone.” It came out sounding almost like a question.

Everyone stared at her. Only Balthazar remembered to take his shot.

“Not even Kit?” Jaquie asked. 

“No,” Freddie said, looking down. “I think we would have, if it hadn’t been for—all of this. But we hadn’t even gone on an official date yet when the virus hit.”

“Shit,” Ben said, looking down. “Freddie, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

Freddie looked away, unsure of how to tell Ben that she didn’t want his pity. She found herself facing Meg, who was giving her an odd look. 

“You know,” Meg said, maintaining careful eye contact. “It’s not too late for that. We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

Freddie felt dizzier the longer she and Meg looked at each other “Yeah, but for that I’d need someone who wanted to kiss me, wouldn’t I? Not like there’s a lot of options in that respect.”

Meg half-shrugged. “I’d do it,” she said, her voice low. “If you wanted me to.”

“Oh.” Freddie couldn’t think of anything else to say, so instead she leaned forward a fraction of an inch.

This was all the invitation that Meg needed. She moved the rest of the distance and pressed her lips against Freddie’s. The kiss was soft, as were Meg’s hands on the back of her neck. After a moment of shock, Freddie leaned into it. She carefully placed her fingers on Meg’s waist, not entirely sure what she was supposed to be doing. She let her mouth open a little bit, felt Meg’s tongue touch hers briefly, and then it was over.

“There,” Meg said, smiling. “Now you’ve been kissed. Who’s turn is it?”

“Yours,” John told her, looking bored.

“Oh, right. Let’s see… Never Have I Ever slept with someone in this room.”

Freddie was so busy reliving the kiss in her mind that it almost didn’t register that the two couples weren’t the only ones drinking. Everyone turned to look at Hero and John, who were both bright red.

Peter looked back and forth between them, a strange look on his face. “You two—seriously?”

“Please don’t make a big deal out of this,” John said, looking as though he wanted nothing more than to go into a dark corner by himself.

“Hero!” Bea said. “Even after what he did to you last year?”

Freddie tuned out the argument to look over at Meg, who glanced back at her and winked. “You knew, didn’t you?” Freddie whispered.

“I may have, yes,” Meg whispered back, leaning in so close that her hair brushed Freddie’s face. “Think it was too mean?”

“No,” Freddie said, unable to take her eyes off of Meg’s lips. “They were bound to find out eventually, right? Besides, they didn’t have to do it. Take the shots, I mean. They could have lied.”

Meg faked a gasp. “Are you telling me that people _lie_ in Never Have I Ever?”

“I guess I am.”

“If you two can kindly stop flirting,” Bea said, “The rest of us would really like to get back to the game. As quickly as possible so that I can get the image of— _that—_ out of my head.”

They played several more rounds, most of them switching to beer as they had to take more shots. Freddie managed to keep herself just on the edge of sobriety, and was quite pleased that she’d been able to relax and enjoy a game even at a time like this. When everyone agreed that it was time to finish up, she was actually disappointed, although that may have had something to do with the fact that Meg’s thigh, which had been pressed against hers for almost the entire game, was now moving away.

“Well, I’m off to bed,” Ben said, stretching. “The end of the world’s no excuse not to get my beauty sleep.”

“I think I will as well,” Balthazar said, going over to his corner of the room for his toothbrush. The others followed suit, getting into pajamas and heading to the bathroom to brush their teeth. 

Freddie moved slowly as she brushed her teeth and thought through the events of the evening. What she really needed to do was write down her thoughts, organize them in some way so that they’d stop racing around in her head, but the only paper in the bar was Balthazar’s song writing notebook, and he wouldn’t let anyone but himself go near it.

“Lights off in five,” Peter said when everyone had returned from the bathroom. Freddie quickly changed into pajamas and got into her sleeping bag. When they’d claimed spaces, she’d made a point to pick one far away from where anyone else was sleeping so that nobody could wake her up by making noise.

Not that sleep had been particularly present lately under any circumstances.

Jaquie turned off the lights and everyone settled in. At first, there were the sounds of rustling and whispers, but after an hour or so these died down. The sounds of breathing were slow and rhythmic, but did nothing to slow Freddie’s own heartrate. She kept thinking about the zombies, and the people she cared about who were out there fighting, and that kiss, that fucking kiss and the way that for a moment, she’d stopped having to think about anything.

Freddie was still nowhere near falling asleep when she heard movement from Meg’s area of the room. At first, she thought that Meg was just shifting in her sleep, but when the sound didn’t go away Freddie realized that she wasn’t the only one still awake. She fought with herself for a moment, then got up and moved so that she and her sleeping bag were lying next to Meg.

Meg opened her eyes the moment Freddie laid down. “You can’t sleep either, huh?”

“Not for weeks,” she admitted. “I only get a few hours most nights, I don’t know how the others are managing it.”

“The alcohol helps,” Meg said, propping herself up on one elbow. “And I think there’s other reasons as well.” She indicated toward Bea and Ben, then Peter and Balthazar. Both couples were sharing sleeping bags, wrapped up in each other’s arms. “You know, when I decided not to be in a relationship I hadn’t factored the end of the world into things.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Freddie knew a thing or two about plans that couldn’t be carried through to completion. She’d know exactly what she wanted to do with her life and exactly how to get there. She’d had _lists._ These days, Freddie would be lucky if she made even a shopping list that could be properly carried out.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?” Meg asked, startling Freddie out of her thoughts.

“I suppose so. I can try to repair the heating again tomorrow if you want,” Freddie offered.

“It’s okay, the last time you did that you hurt yourself. Besides, it’s not so bad in the day,” Meg said. “But at night—you know, maybe the others have got the right idea. Sharing body heat, I mean.”

“Are you suggesting that we—” Freddie found herself unable to properly form the question.

“If you want to,” Meg said. “Is there any reason not to at this point?”

Freddie considered this, weighing how cold she was against the fact that if anything happened between them, it would mean another change that she hadn’t factored into her plans. “Why me?” she asked. “Why not Jaquie or someone?”

“Jaquie snores,” Meg said, which really didn’t answer anything at all. “So, do you want to?”

Freddie only thought about it for a few moments before her decision was made. “Okay,” she whispered.

“My sleeping bag’s bigger,” Meg said, unzipping it so that Freddie could climb in. It was awkward at first, trying to find a way that both of their bodies could fit into the small space. Eventually, they found a position facing each other, with Meg’s arm flung loosely over Freddie’s waist. 

Their faces were so close together. Meg must have been thinking about the same thing, because she smiled and asked, “Can I kiss you again?”

Freddie’s eyes flicked to her lips, then back up. “I want to,” she admitted. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Freddie tried to smile, but didn’t think she quite managed it. “Because we’re in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse and that isn’t really a good time to enter a relationship?”

“It might be the best time, actually,” Meg said. “Less pressure to do things a certain way. Besides, things—well, they seem clearer, don’t they, when you know you could die at any moment? It’s easier to communicate when you know there isn’t a lot of time. That was what made me decide to come out. I realized that I didn’t want to die without having told anyone I was bi.”

“But that’s just it,” Freddie said. They were so close together, close enough that she could have counted Meg’s eyelashes if she wanted to. “We could die. Or just one of us could. What if we ended up falling in love, then that happened?”

“Which is worse, though?” Meg asked. “Watching someone you love die, or dying without ever having given yourself the chance to be in love?” There were tears clinging to her eyelashes and Freddie realized she was crying. “Besides,” she continued. “Weren’t you the one who said we had to have things worth living for?”

“Shit,” Freddie said, but what she meant was, _How do you always know the right thing to say, how is it that you can piece together the parts that matter so that they all make sense?_ “You’re right.”

“I hope so,” Meg said, pulling away a little bit. “Sometimes I wonder if any of it’s really worth it.”

“Hey,” Freddie said, putting up a hand to cup Meg’s cheek. “We can’t afford to think like that.” For once in her life, she did something without overthinking it and leaned in to kiss Meg on the other cheek.

Meg turned her head, and their lips met. This time, Freddie slid her fingers into Meg’s hair and pulled her closer. They shifted positions so that Meg was leaning over her, hands around her waist as they kissed. 

When Meg broke away, she smiled and moved back to Freddie’s side, wrapping an arm loosely around her waist. “We should both try to get some sleep,” she said. 

Freddie impulsively kissed her on the nose. Meg giggled. “Yeah,” Freddie said, leaning her head on the crook of Meg’s neck. “We probably should.”

When she focused on the sound of Meg’s steady breathing, Freddie finally found her body slowing down. After a surprisingly short amount of time, she drifted off into the best sleep she’d had since the zombies had first invaded Wellington.


End file.
